Rooftop
by Sorrel
Summary: Futurefic. Clark and Lex have an dishonestly honest conversation on a rooftop. ClarkLex SLASH.


**Rooftop.

* * *

**

_"Clark, in the past I've made my feelings for you perfectly clear, and they do not include sexual attraction."_

_ "That's not a yes or no answer."_

_ "I thought it was very clear."_

_ "Did I ever tell you that I can always tell when you're lying?"

* * *

_

It was a sunny day, and Clark was enjoying it by lying on the roof of the LexCorp towers. He was soaking in the heat of the sun and the knowledge that below him, Lex's empire was running as smoothly as it always did, and the two things left him feeling sleepy and happy.

He heard the footsteps long before they stopped next to his head, but he didn't open his eyes. He knew that stride.

"I was wondering where you disappeared to," Lex said.

"No, you weren't," Clark said, not bothering to look up and catch Lex's expression to his blunt phrase. He knew what he'd see. He'd seen shock on Lex's face rarely, and always when Clark was being straightforward. It happened so rarely between them that Clark treasured each and every instance, and Lex's reaction never got old.

"Is that so?"

"You know I always come up here when your dad is over," Clark said. The sun and Lex's presence left him peaceful, a feeling that happened all too rarely these days.

"I don't blame you," Lex said, answering his question and not answering it. That was okay; Clark knew how to decode Lex's speech and translated perfectly. Lex didn't have as many secrets as he thought he did.

_

* * *

"You know that I've been able to tell the same thing since the day I met you?"_

_ "Sure. I lie to protect myself and you lie because you don't want me to know, but I've always been able to see through you. You might have thought I was just a kid, but I wasn't."_

_ "I never thought that. I always knew you were extraordinary, and- You're changing the subject."_

_ "What, you expected me to be straightforward? I've spent too much time with you."_

* * *

"So why'd you come looking for me?" Clark asked. This time he opened his eyes as he waited for Lex's answer, the blinding glare of the sun nothing but a soft glow to his eyes, so he could make out the slightest changes of Lex's expression even in silhouette. 

"Dad's gone," Lex said. "Thought that you might feel ready to come back down."

"I knew he was gone," Clark said.

"So why didn't you come back?" Lex didn't ask how Clark knew, because they didn't do that anymore. They didn't ask each other questions because they didn't want to know the answers. Their friendship was based on smoke and mirrors but they clung to it anyway. What else did they have? Money and heroism were cold comforts, and sex was a travesty of closeness at the best of times.

"I was waiting for you to come get me," Clark said.

_

* * *

"You're turning the issue around again."_

_ "Yeah. Remind me what we were talking about again?"_

_ "The fact that I'm not interested in you like that."_

_ "And the fact that you're lying."_

_ "If we want to get into lies, Clark, there's a few you could own up to as well."_

_ "I'll own up to something when you do, Lex, which you still haven't done. I'm not the only one avoiding an issue."_

* * *

"You're very sure of yourself," Lex said, his voice tight and smooth and betraying nothing. Or at least, that's what Lex probably thought. Clark read an encyclopedia's worth in his tone. "What if I'd just left?" 

"Then I would have gone after you," Clark said as he got to his feet. This was so much better when they were face-to-face. "You're not someone that I'd let just walk away."

_

* * *

"It'd be childish to say that I said it first, so I won't. In fact, I'm not going to do anything else but leave."_

_ "Lying again. You think I actually believe you could walk away right now? With me offering up everything you've always wanted?"_

_ "I already told you several times that I'm not interested in sex-"_

_ "I was referring to my secrets, actually, but it's not really helping your case that you thought of sex first."_

* * *

"That's a loaded statement, Clark. Are you trying to tell me something?" Lex's voice was so tense, not even close to hiding his feelings now. Clark smiled lazily up at him. 

"You know what I'm saying," Clark said. "All I want is a yes or a no."

Lex inhaled sharply a sound that would be telling to anyone and practically screams its meaning to Clark. "I don't know, Clark. You're going to have to spell it out for me."

_

* * *

"I didn't think you could be this manipulative, Clark. Offering your trust- but at a price? I don't think so. Trust isn't supposed to come with a price tag."_

_ "I'm giving you my trust if you give me yours. Even trade is generally acceptable in friendships- it's even encouraged. Or are you going to tell me that our friendship was always about discovering my secrets, and nothing else was real?"_

_ "You know that it was real, Clark."_

_ "I do. What I don't know is why you're acting like it wasn't."_

* * *

"Well, it's only a few letters. I could probably manage to spell it, if you needed me to. Or was that metaphorical?" 

"I'm not sure I'm enjoying this side of you, Clark," Lex said, his voice taught. Strain, and something like excitement. Lex liked to pretend that he hated games, when he wound his entire life into a series of matches, one after another. Lex didn't like Clark because he had no games- Lex liked him because he was the biggest one of them all. Maybe in the beginning Clark hadn't known that, but he did now and it was easy to play to.

Lex wasn't the only one who could manipulate.

"Sure you are." With Lex, blunt statements took you so much farther than double-speak, because no matter how many times you used them, he was never expecting them.

"Stop confusing the issue, and just answer my question."

"I want you, Lex. In bed. Sex. And all I want is a yes or no answer."

* * *

Fast forward. Pause. The two men are standing, facing each other. Staring each other down. One is dressed in an impeccable business suit, the other in jeans and cotton with a different sort of suit on underneath. 

Press play.

* * *

"Because I don't know what else to do." 

Lex's voice is barely audible, a mere whisper, but Clark hears him perfectly, and his look is incredulous. Lex has shocked him, finally, with unadorned truth. He is literally stunned into silence, though the silence doesn't last long.

"You are the most complex person I've ever met," Clark says, his voice dangerously calm. "You have four contingency plans for every situation, even when we go out to dinner in the evenings. And now, in the simplest possible situation, you don't know what to do."

"Simple?" Lex demands. His meekness is gone like smoke on the wind, an aberration forgotten in his anger. "How is anything about this situation simple? We've been best friends for almost a decade and we lie to each other every day. And you think that sex between us would be _simple_?"

"A hell of a lot simpler than everything else in our life," Clark said. "Look, we have rules. Unspoken, but definitely still there. I don't ask about the secret experiments and shady business deals that you do with LexCorp, and you don't ask about me being Superman. We never asked because we both figured that it would end the friendship. And that we both wouldn't have anything left without it."

Lex says nothing.

"But obviously, we already know each other's secrets, and avoiding saying them out loud doesn't keep them hidden. It just makes things more complicated. If we were having sex, we wouldn't be able to lie."

Lex's snorted laugh sounds painful. "What the hell are you talking about? We both lie to the people we sleep with every day."

"I wasn't talk about other people, Lex," Clark says patiently. Far too patiently. "I was talking about us. Do you honestly think that you could keep acting like everything was fine and normal with my cock up your ass? Do you think that you could pretend not to know what I am when you have bruises that even you can't heal the next morning?"

Lex says nothing.

"Because you couldn't. And I'm tired of the lies, and I want you. So I'm offering you two things, and asking two things in return. I'm offering myself and my secrets, and in return you take what I'm offering and tell me the same. Complete trust in each other. Isn't that what you always said that friendships were supposed to be about?"

"And the sex?" Lex asks, his voice remarkably steady. "How does that fit into your notions of friendship?"

"It doesn't," Clark says, turning his blindingly sweet smile on Lex. "But it does fit into me being in love with you, and you being in love with me."

Lex says nothing. Instead, he just reaches out with one pale hand that trembles ever-so-slightly. Clark grabs it, and reels him in for their first kiss.

A full minute later, they lean against each other and just breathe. Then Clark laughs a little, the rumble of it in his chest vibrating against Lex's.

"What's so funny?" Lex mutters, his breath ghosting against the side of Clark's neck where his mouth rests. Clark smiles against the top of his head.

"This. I should have known that it would take this much work just to kiss you."

Lex pulls back in outrage that is only half-faked. "Are you telling me that I'm too much work?"

"Never," Clark says, kissing him again and again, tiny and swift attacks that leave Lex's sense swimming and his knees weak. "You're what I want. You're exactly what I want."

"A fucked-up man with a superiority complex the size of China who runs secret experiments in labs that aren't on the books?" An olive branch, the first one he's offered in a conversation full of ones that Clark holds out.

"That just makes you the perfect person for a fucked-up alien with a Messiah complex of equal size and a secret AI fortress up in the Arctic," Clark answers. "See what I mean?"

There is no segue between the two sentences, but Lex follows perfectly well just the same. "Truth for truth? Yes, I do."

"Good," Clark says, and kisses him again. The sun is setting behind them when Clark pulls back and said, "You know, Lex, I think this is going to be the beginning of a great friendship."

Lex just smiles, and watches the last slice of the sun as it disappeares behind the horizon.


End file.
